As calls intensify for New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign amid his collusion with President Donald J. Trump over mass deportations, Caribbean and other immigrant advocates in New York have urged the city workforce not to collude with agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“Today, New Yorkers find ourselves at another crossroads. Four of our City’s deputy mayors resigned because of how compromised the mayor is, in light of his recent actions in collusion with the Trump administration,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella immigrant advocacy organization representing over 200 immigrant groups in New York, told Caribbean Life on Tuesday. “At a time when New Yorkers cannot rely on their mayor to follow the law, others in the Adams administration must step up.
“Mayor Adams may view his own participation in Trump’s mass deportation agenda as a get out of jail free card, but the actions he will be directing his subordinates to take to collude with ICE are both legally dubious and morally corrupt,” Awawdeh added. “We are calling on all remaining deputy mayors, city agency commissioners, and city workers within the Adams administration to not comply with any orders to collaborate with ICE from this mayor, who remains compromised in his ability to put the needs and the safety of New Yorkers ahead of his own.
“Despite what feels like a never-ending bad movie at City Hall, New York City’s workforce has continued to deliver for everyone who calls this city home,” he continued. “We commend you for your work in keeping the government running through a time when there is no effective leadership from the mayor.”
With the resignation of four top New York City officials over Adams’s collusion with Trump on his mass deportation agenda, New York Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has demanded that the mayor “step aside and resign.”
“With the resignation of deputy mayors, it has become clear that Mayor Adams has now lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government, and New Yorkers,” said Council Speaker Adams, no relations with the mayor, in a statement on Monday. “He now must prioritize New York City and New Yorkers, step aside and resign.
“This administration no longer has the ability to effectively govern with Eric Adams as mayor,” she added. “These resignations are the culmination of the mayor’s actions and decisions that have led to months of instability and now compromise the City’s sovereignty, threaten chaos, and risk harm to our families.
“There is too much at stake for our city and New Yorkers to allow this to continue,” Speaker Adams continued. “We have endured enough scandal, selfishness, and embarrassment, all of which distract from the leadership that New Yorkers deserve. This is the opposite of public service.
“Our city needs a leader totally committed to protecting New Yorkers and improving their lives,” she said.
As the US Department of Justice (DOJ) moves to dismiss federal prosecutors’ corruption case against Mayor Adams because of his collaboration with Trump’s mass deportation plans, the four top New York City officials said on Monday that they cannot continue to serve in the Eric Adams administration.
The leading officials are First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer and Deputy Mayors Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom, and Chauncey Parker.
Hours later on Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has been under increasing pressure to force Mayor Adams out of office amid the scandal, said she would meet with key city leaders in her Manhattan office on Tuesday.
“Since taking office in 2021, I’ve done everything possible to partner with the City of New York under the leadership of two different mayors. We’ve worked together to fight crime on the streets and subways, close illegal cannabis shops, and build more housing through the ‘City of Yes.’ Bickering between State and City officials is a waste of time, and I refuse to go back to the days when our constituents were caught in the crossfire of political turf wars,” said Hochul in a statement.
“Earlier today, I spoke with First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer to express my gratitude for her years of service to New York City. She and Deputy Mayors Anne Williams-Isom, Meera Joshi, and Chauncey Parker have been strong partners with my administration across dozens of key issues. If they feel unable to serve in City Hall at this time, that raises serious questions about the long-term future of this Mayoral administration,” she added.
“I recognize the immense responsibility I hold as governor and the constitutional powers granted to this office. In the 235 years of New York State history, these powers have never been utilized to remove a duly-elected mayor; overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly,” the governor continued.
“That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored,” she said. “Tomorrow, I have asked key leaders to meet me at my Manhattan office for a conversation about the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”
Hochul said her “most urgent concern is the well-being of my 8.3 million constituents who live in New York City.
“I will be monitoring this situation extraordinarily closely to ensure that New Yorkers are not being shortchanged by the current crisis in City government,” she said.
Recently, top New York City Council officials expressed deep concern about Mayor Adams’s intention to issue an executive order allowing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents access to Rikers Island Correctional Facility in New York amid Trump’s mass deportation plan that involves Caribbean immigrants.
In a joint statement, Council Speaker Adams, Immigration Committee Chair Alexa Avilés and Criminal Justice Committee Chair Sandy Nurse said that they want to “see language of any purported executive order to evaluate its legality.
“Today’s statement by the mayor only further connects it to the resignations at DOJ over the apparent quid pro quo identified by the recently resigned US Attorney for the Southern District (Court),” said Speaker Adams, Avilés and Nurse on Friday.
They said Local Law 58 of 2014 has “clear guidelines” prohibiting the use of office space on Rikers Island for civil immigration enforcement.
“We are prepared to defend against violations of the law, but this announcement only deepens the concern that the mayor is prioritizing the interests of the Trump administration over those of New Yorkers,” they said, adding that current city laws are specific to how and when city resources can be used for federal immigration enforcement to protect the safety of the City and its communities.
“The Council will determine its formal response based on the executive order,” Speaker Adams, Avilés, and Nurse said.
Following the mayor’s meeting with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, the top City Council officials noted that the mayor announced an executive order to “reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island for criminal enforcement.”
They said this meeting came days after top DOJ officials “interfered” in Adams’s federal criminal case. The same day several DOJ officials resigned in protest, including the Acting US Attorney for the Southern District Court of New York.
After meeting with Homan earlier on Thursday, Adams said: “As I have always said, immigrants have been crucial in building our City and will continue to be key to our future success, but we must fix our long-broken immigration system.
“Since the spring of 2022, New York City has been forced to shoulder the burden of a national humanitarian crisis where more than 230,000 migrants have come to our city seeking support, at a cost of approximately US$7 billion, with little help from the previous administration,” he said.
“That is why I have been clear that I want to work with the new federal administration, not war with them, to find common ground and make better the lives of New Yorkers,” he added, stating that he also met with local federal law enforcement officials “to discuss how we can work together to remove violent migrant gangs from our City.
“We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island—as was the case for 20 years,” the mayor continued.
He said now, instead, ICE agents would “specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs.”
Adams said they also discussed ways to embed more NYPD detectives into federal task forces, focusing on these violent gangs and criminal activity.
“Keeping the 8.3 million New Yorkers who call our city home safe is — and will always remain — our administration’s North Star,” he said.
As some Democrats call for Adams’s resignation and push Hochul to oust him from office, Adams, seeking re-election to another four-year term, made it clear on Sunday, Feb. 16, that he is standing firm.
“People are dancing on my grave,” Adams told congregants at Maranatha Baptist Church in Queens on Sunday, Feb. 16. “I’ve got a mission to finish. I am going nowhere.”
However, US U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, said on Sunday on ABC TV’s “This Week” that he was “very concerned” about Adams’s actions.
“Mayor Adams has a responsibility to convince the people of New York City that he will be able to continue to govern in a manner that puts their best interests first at all times and that he’s not simply taking orders from a Trump administration,” said Jeffries, whose 8th Congressional District in parts of Brooklyn and Queens encompasses a significant number of Caribbean immigrants.
